


Invisible Steel

by Emilys_List



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilys_List/pseuds/Emilys_List
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A journey along the life rivers of Peggy and Joyce, including moments of awkwardness, yearning, love and regret</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisible Steel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soupytwist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupytwist/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Peggy and Joyce belong to Matt Weiner, Lionsgate, AMC, and lots of other people that are not me
> 
> A/N: Title comes from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, and the influence of the novel reverberates pretty clearly through this whole fic.
> 
> Soupytwist, thank you so much for this prompt! I had a great time writing it, and I can only hope that you had a great time reading it.

Joyce gets her hands on a camera for the first time when she’s 14. It’s a Kodak, and it’s a couple of years old, a beloved object belonging to her Aunt Mavis. She’s entrusted with it for a brief moment to snap her mom and Mavis’s picture, their arms tight around each other, their faces rosy from drink. She picks it up gently and looks through the view finder at the women who suddenly look different and feel altogether less real. She aims and shoots carefully, and hands the camera back grudgingly. She likes the feeling of capturing a moment, of freezing it in time and making it hers.

The picture, when she sees it later, is blurry - but it doesn’t matter. She studies every inch of the image, even taking a magnifying glass to it. She begins to visit the library most afternoons after school, pouring over heavy art books, trying to figure out what it is exactly that makes something beautiful and admirable.

She continues her search.

+

Peggy sneaks away from the house. She doesn’t yet know the phrase “self-righteous,” but when she does she applies it well, and to Anita. She’s 14 and each night her body aches with growing pains as she tries to go to sleep. Her face is oily, her developing breasts ache, and she feels wholly alien in her own skin.

The only time she feels a little better is when she slips away and sits at the water’s edge, where one day soon production on the bridge will begin. From here she feels like she could spit on Staten Island. She sits with her arms wrapped around her knees and pulls out a book. Her escape within an escape feels forbidden and selfish, like something she’ll need to confess at confession.

“Tell the truth and write the story,” she reads again, having read this book at least three times already. She loves it. She loves it. It was the first time she had realized that badness had a backstory, and that people were capable of astonishing things.

When it starts to turn chilly, when goosebumps flare up on her bare arms and legs, she closes her book and trudges home. She knows if her presence has gone noticed, she’ll get at least a talking to about disappearing. Sometimes she wishes she could disappear.

+

Peggy stretches her legs out on the couch and into Joyce’s lap, letting out a hiccup. She covers her mouth, surprised, then laugh-hiccups. “Ow,” she manages to say, one hand over her chest.

Joyce takes the opportunity to steal her drink and, sipping, makes a face. “Christ. You make a weak libation.” She rests one hand on Peggy’s calf. “So before you lost the power to breathe, I was telling you about Linda.”

Peggy takes her drink back, nodding. “The redhead who likes William Burroughs. I don’t even know who that is, but, uh-huh.”

Joyce’s hand is heavy on Peggy’s leg. “So, we went to Maryangelo’s and there was a raid, which was not ideal as I was in mid-sip when the pigs busted in. We rushed out the back and ran up Bleeker. We’re running and running and out of breath, and it’s not exactly Roman candles and harps playing, but it’s a spectacular night out and I thought she was having fun.”

“Thought,” Peggy interjects, interrupting.

Joyce thumps her leg once and continues on. “We headed over to the White Horse and all of a sudden she changes her mind, says she has to get home and set her hair. Wash her dishes. Anything but being there with me, I suppose. So I head inside for a night cap and to play some darts.”

It’s here that Peggy is staring into Joyce’s face, taken by the way the lamp light hits her face and hair.

“I’m playing, and this square rambles over, asks if I mind if I join him. At this point I’m about four beers in. We play. Carry on a nice conversation. Next thing I know we’re on the street, necking. Geez, Pogo, say something and get that look off of your face.”

“You kissed a boy?” Peggy squeaks out.

Joyce shrugs and smooths one hand down her ponytail, confident as always. “Wasn’t the first time. It was fun until it wasn’t, and then I went home.”

Peggy sits up straighter and swings her legs down, still sitting close to Joyce. “But you’re - you. I don’t understand.”

“People can be more than one thing.”

Peggy stares away thoughtfully, as if giving this statement her full mental attention. She smiles, shaking her head incredulously, then frowns deeply. She looks confused, and she stays that way even as she leans in to kiss Joyce, to press her lips softly against hers. When she pulls back, Joyce is smiling.

“I knew you’d come around, eventually.” She grabs Peggy’s face and pulls her back in for another kiss.

For the next two weeks they spend every spare moment in bed, kissing and fucking and enjoying each other in this new way. And, then, they don’t. They arrive back to where they were before Joyce kissed a boy as if nothing ever happened.

+

It’s a leap year, and they make a dinner date for February 29.

Peggy arrives first to Mon Petit Cafe, allowing herself the luxury to peruse the Arts & Leisure section as she discreetly changes out of her commuting sneakers under the table. When the guilt acutely creeps in, she digs into her briefcase for a plain manilla folder containing budgets and puts the Times away. Eventually Joyce shows up, but with a bourbon and a half in her, Peggy is relaxed and holds her tongue. She stows her papers away and stands to give Joyce a big hug and kiss on the cheek. “Darling,” she says automatically. “Darling,” Joyce answers, lovingly rote.

They sit. Joyce drapes her coat over the back of her chair. “I’m late.”

Peggy checks her wrist watch. “Only by 20 minutes. I said I’d stop getting on your case about this sort of thing, and I meant it.”

Joyce reaches out, flicks Peggy right in the middle of her forehead. “I’m pregnant.”

Peggy winces from the contact and news - in that order. “What?”

Joyce sips her water, keeping Peggy waiting. When she finishes, she delicately dabs at her mouth with the cloth napkin. She smiles. “Nancy and I are pregnant. Me, physically. Her, more spiritually.” Peggy shoves the bread basket closer to Joyce, nodding. “This was the seventh insemination. We were really ready to throw in the towel.”

“I’m happy for you,” Peggy says, but anyone who saw her face would know exactly what she actually meant. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s bad luck or whatever. It’s all Nance. Anyway, you wanna be a godmama?”

“I can’t, I haven’t been Catholic for years.”

“We’re not talking christening, white gown, church godmothering. We’re doing two godmothers, we’re getting shaman involved, praying to the goddess, everything. This will be the most lesbian pregnancy Park Slope has ever seen - which is really saying something.”

Peggy cracks a smile and pinches Joyce’s cheek. “Mom.”

“I’m starving,” Joyce proclaims and opens her menu. “I’ll have four entrees. That should do it. How are you? Richard?”

Peggy straightens the napkin on the table and the silverware on the napkin. “I finally hired a new secretary so my life will be a little easier. I finished Andrea Dworkin’s new book and I want to hear your thoughts. And I baked a pie for the first time in my life. Richard ate most of it and I think it gave him food poisoning.”

Joyce reaches out one hand and strokes the back of Peggy’s hand. “It’s so good to see you. It’s been too long.”

Peggy has a memory. It’s early May and they’re in Washington Square Park under the arch, smoking grass. (What were they thinking?) They’re past the giggly phase and are introspective, and Joyce is asking Peggy if she knew that this land used to be a burial ground. “There are thousands of people underneath us.”

In her marijuana-fueled haze, tears stream down Peggy’s cheeks, upset with the unfair injustice of death. “I don’t want us to die, ever. I don’t want to lose you.” She buries her face into Joyce’s shoulder, her arms slung around her neck.

“Okay. You won’t,” Joyce replies, hugging back, the joint still dangling from one hand. She hugs her tight and drops it.

This was before Peggy became a partner at SCDP; before Peggy fell out with Abe then took up with a short string of men until one stuck - Richard; before Joyce slept her way through the lesbian community - twice - until meeting Nancy in San Francisco and buying a brownstone in Park Slope, much to Peggy’s amazement that some people would willingly live in Brooklyn; and before they saw less and less of each other as the months and years slid by.

She has a tear in her eye but she knows Joyce can’t see it.

They split dessert and have a wonderful, long talk. In the candlelight, they look at each other’s glowing faces, and for a little while everything is pristine and bright. Outside the winter wind gusts.

/end.


End file.
